Thursday, March 31, 2016

Star War Rebels S2E20 Twilight of the Apprentice Recap/Review (Spoilers!): Good, but Could Have Been Better

Maybe I need to watch the entire episode again, but the
season finale of Star Wars Rebels was a letdown.

There was great action, good introductions, an amazing climatic
fight, and a tantalizing ending but in the end it didn’t live up to the expectations
I had for the show. The ending left me scratching my head. I’m not sure why
they wouldn’t give us a definitive death for Ahsoka. Everything leading up to
the the fight was pitch perfect. Vader’s lines with the voice of James Earl Jones
gave me goosebumps. Then to switch it up and have the actor who voiced Anakin
from the Clone Wars was a great touch. Vader was almost used perfectly, except
for him not killing Ahsoka.

This is the biggest crux of the episode, the buildup to the
fight between Ahsoka and Vader, and then you leave it unfinished. Show a
killing shot, or as much of one as you can for a kids show. We saw the deaths
of the inquisitors, why not have the death of Ahsoka. This I guess leaves the possibility
for her to come back and redeem Ezra once he falls to the darkside, but it
doesn’t make much sense for the show overall. I love David Filoni, but I think
he mishandled the ending of the episode because of how closely he is tied to
the character he created.

The entire rest of the episode I loved, which makes the
finale still a good cap to the season. They just didn’t need to show one of the
final shots with her walking, leave it ambiguous with us not seeing her body
and Vader walking away. That leaves us questioning if she is still alive, but
doesn’t take away from the fantastic buildup and conclusion set up during the
course of the entire episode and season. The final shot of the episode with
Ezra opening the Sith holocron was powerful and lets us know he’s going to the
dark side, and will probably be the major ark of the next season.

My prediction for next season will be for Ezra to go off and
join Maul to be trained in the Dark Side. This might not happen until the
mid-season break, because he will still want to be loyal to Kanan and the other
crew members, but he will start to view them as weak, especially with Kanan
losing his eye sight. The second half of the season will probably be training
by Maul with an eventual confrontation between Kanan and Ezra. He will either
be brought back to the light or turn more to the dark side with the eventual
conclusion of the series being one or both of them dying. I could of course be completely
wrong, but it’s fun to speculate.

Maul will become a major figure in the next season. He will
have to be. We haven’t seen all of the inquisitors, but with Kanan being hurt
Ezra will want to finish the fight. He will also want to get revenge on Maul
for what he did to Kanan. In the end though they will eventually team up to try
and take down the Inquisitors and Vader. One of the best lines of the night was
when Ezra mentioned he needed to train more watching Ahsoka and Vader fight. He
does need to train more, and Kanan might not be able to give him the training
he needs.

Kanan’s story next season will also be interesting. His fight
against Maul blind was really well done. He is still strong in the Force, and
not being able to see might grow his power, but he will have to focus on
himself and not Ezra, and this is a dangerous time for Ezra to be without guidance.
I liked that he channeled his inner Daredevil and was able to defeat Maul, but his
lack of eyesight will still be a hindrance. How Kanan handles these challenges will
make for a good character arch next season.

Regardless of how I felt about the very end to the season,
overall it was an enjoyable 20 episodes. I hope they release another hour
episode to start the season, but closer to the release of regular episodes, and
not in the middle of the summer. Filoni
and his team have done a great job, and I continue to have high hopes for the
series overall and it will be interesting to see how next season ties into
Rogue One.

What did you think about the season finale? Did the very end
with Ahsoka bother you? If it did bother you did the other positives of the
episode outweigh the ending? I still think it was good it just could have been
better.